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Decentralization, Local Government, and Socio-Political Conflict in Southern Thailand

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Decentralization, Local Government, and Socio-Political Conflict in Southern Thailand No. 5, August 2006 Decentralization, Local Government, and Socio- political Conflict in Southern Thailand Chandra-nuj Mahakanjana East-West Center Washington WORKING PAPERS East-West Center The East-West Center is an internationally recognized education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen understanding and relations between the United States and the countries of the Asia Pacific. Through its programs of cooperative study, training, seminars, and research, the Center works to promote a stable, peaceful and prosperous Asia Pacific community in which the United States is a leading and valued partner. Funding for the Center comes for the U.S. government, private foundations, individuals, corporations and a number of Asia- Pacific governments. East-West Center Washington Established on September 1, 2001, the primary function of the East-West Center Washington is to further the East-West Center mission and the institutional objective of building a peaceful and prosperous Asia Pacific community through substantive programming activities focused on the theme of conflict reduction in the Asia Pacific region and promoting American understanding of and engagement in Asia Pacific affairs. Contact Information: Editor, EWCW Working Papers East-West Center Washington 1819 L Street, NW, Suite 200 Washington, D.C. 20036 Tel: (202) 293-3995 Fax: (202) 293-1402 [email protected] Chandra-nuj Mahakanjana is a faculty member of the School of Public Administration at the National Institute of Development Administration, Bangkok, Thailand. During 2005, she was a Southeast Asia Fellow at the East- West Center Washington, where this study was written. Details on the fellowship program can be found on page 49. East-West Center Washington Working Papers This Working Paper is a product of the East-West Center Washington’s Southeast Asia Fellowship Program. No. 5, August 2006 Decentralization, Local Government, and Socio- political Conflict in Southern Thailand Chandra-nuj Mahakanjana East-West Center Washington Working Papers are non-reviewed and unedited prepublications reporting on research in progress. These working papers are also available in PDF format on the East-West Center Washington’s website Publications page at www.eastwestcenterwashington.org/publications. Additional paper copies can be obtained by contacting the the East-West Center Washington office. The price for EWCW Working Papers is $3.00 each plus postage. East-West Center Washington Decentralization, Local Government, and Socio- political Conflict in Southern Thailand The conflict in the Muslim-dominant area of For decades, but particularly since southern Thailand has been running for over a violence in the south began to escalate in 2001, century. It has waned and waxed, but by the scholars have offered a variety of explanations late 1990s there were good reasons to believe for the enduring separatist movements and that it was on an irreversible declining trend. associated conflicts. This paper contends that One of the reasons for such optimism was that analyses of the southern conflict have given the central government was set to implement insufficient attention to patterns of local and decentralization policies throughout Thailand regional governance as mechanisms that have that would give Thais more local control over mitigated violence in the south in the past and administrative, and personnel, though not offer hope again for quelling the conflict. necessarily budgetary, policies. Democracy Informal arrangements established during the was sinking deeper roots in Thailand and 1980s created an informal institutional setting Muslims were assuming high profile roles in tailored to the problems specific to the region. various parties and in ruling cabinets. And These arrangements were dismantled by the even before the implementation of formal new Thaksin government in 2001. The new decentralization policies, prior governments government also undermined the goals of had put in place unique institutional decentralization as outlined in the 1997 arrangements that afforded the southernmost constitution and in the 1999 implementing provinces close cooperation among local elites legislation. Central government resistance to and the Thai military. decentralization was apparent throughout Thailand, but became particularly marked and Chandra-nuj Mahakanjana significant when increasing violence in the the effectiveness of the state machinery in the south diverted resources from local region. governments to security forces operating in The plausible hypothesis that decentral- the area, and to central government ization can diminish tensions rooted in local development priorities. opposition to externally controlled governance The Constitutional Drafting Assembly structures is supported by my survey and included the goal of decentralization in its field research in Pattani. That research 1997 draft in order to enhance local suggests that prevailing political attitudes and participation and to boost the quality of local behaviors in the far south may be distinctive. governance. The assembly was not primarily My empirical findings offer tentative support concerned for conditions in the far south. for the hope that decentralization may However, decentralization might have contribute to resolution of the conflict in the promised to alleviate further tensions in the south. At the very least, looking at the conflict area. Many prior studies had argued that the using a political and administrative cultural distance between Muslim-Malay framework can add to our understanding of locals and Buddhist officials of the central the conflict itself. state brought in from other regions of the Malay-speaking and bilingual Malay- country created tensions in the region. Not Muslims, when compared with Thai Buddhist until the late 1970s were Malay-Muslims speakers in Pattani, have higher levels of appointed to official positions in the south in political efficacy, participate more in local significant numbers.1 politics, and have stronger beliefs in the The tensions in the three provinces of potential for local governments to address Narathiwat, Pattani, and Yala long have been their problems. Apparently, the cognitive rooted in the centralized nature of the state outlooks associated with a civil society and its forced assimilation policies. supportive of capable governance are more Administrative centralization dismantled the pronounced among the majority population of traditional local elite power structure and the far south than among the minority highlighted the linguistic and cultural population there, and perhaps than among the distinctiveness of officials drawn from the Buddhist majority in other parts of Thailand.2 majority Buddhist population operating While my findings are no more than among a largely Malay-Muslim populace. suggestive, they not only signal the need for Greatly enhanced local autonomy and further research, but also underline the governance under the terms of implementing potential of an effective decentralization legislation subsequent to the constitution policy that builds on the apparent local promised to boost the numbers of local potential for effective government to diminish officials and politicians who would have local the long standing sources of grievance in roots and would therefore be more likely to be Thailand’s far south. sensitive to the customs and worldviews of Armed separatist activities in southern the local population. And because the tensions Thailand are not new phenomena. However, between locals and central government after diminishing substantially over the 1990s, officials have long been such a central and the historically rooted conflict escalated persistent feature of this conflict, this paper gradually in 2001 and dramatically after argues that implementation of a fuller form of January 2004. The three southernmost decentralization continues to hold great provinces where the majority of the 1.5 million potential as a means of diminishing both the residents are Thai-Muslims,3 are suffering the resentments that tend to fuel the conflict and security, economic, social, and political the isolation of state officials that undermines consequences of the conflict. The causes of the conflict and its recent escalation surely are 2 Decentralization, Local Government, and Socio-political Conflict in Southern Thailand complex, involving the interaction of many local antipathy to corruption appears to be factors. Scholars doing recent research on the particularly marked.6 ongoing violence in southern Thailand have This paper argues that violence in the emphasized many diverse forces such as south needs to be understood in terms of local ethnic identity, economic deprivation, administrative and political problems. In a criminal networks, conflicts between the army context that is perceived by many locals as and the police, the failures of the central essentially colonial, it surely makes sense to government’s development and assimilation consider ways in which enhanced self- policies, the central authorities’ discrimination government might contribute to better against Muslims, the impact of Islamism, government performance and to social peace. global Islamic terrorism networks, failures to A focus restricted to issues of religion, accurately analyze the situation, long term identity, and international terrorist networks conflict among central authorities, the simply is not adequate. Muslim separatist excessive
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